Mother of two follows family footsteps to serve in Peace Corps in Niger

Read and comment on this story from the Green Bay Press-Gazette on Kathy Waldron who will be on her way to Niger to start a 27-month stint in the Peace Corps. She’ll be following in the footsteps of her father and her big sister Mary and leading a path for her own children, Nick and Sarah. “I want my children to learn the same lesson that my father taught me, that it’s a privilege to be involved helping others,” she said. Read the story at:

*This link was active on the date it was posted. PCOL is not responsible for broken links which may have changed.

Mother of two follows family footsteps into Peace Corps

By Terry Anderson tanderso@greenbaypressgazette.com

This will be a special Thanksgiving for Kathy Waldron, gathering with children and relatives at the family farm near Brillion.

Next week, Waldron will be on her way to Niger in West Africa to start a 27-month stint in the Peace Corps. She’ll be following in the footsteps of her father and her big sister Mary and leading a path for her own children, Nick and Sarah.

“I want my children to learn the same lesson that my father taught me, that it’s a privilege to be involved helping others,” she said.

Waldron’s adventure begins Dec. 3 with a flight to Philadelphia where she and other Peace Corps volunteers will receive invocations and inoculations. Then it will be to Niger and three months of training before being sent into the countryside.

Waldron will serve as a crop extension agent, but also working with AIDS education. About 2 percent of Niger’s 12 million residents have been infected by the AIDS virus. A medical transcriptionist, Waldron has been granted a two-year leave of absence by Bellin Hospital.

Farm background

Waldron believes that her farm background and experience working in health care may have been one of the reasons that the Peace Corps welcomed a 43-year-old single mother.

“I don’t have a four-year degree, but I certainly have the hands-on experience,” Waldron said. “I grew up on the family farm and I’ll be working with rural people.”

Also, the fact that Waldron is one of the area’s top marathon runners, may have played a role in her assignment to the sub-Saharan nation.

“One of the reasons that I’m going to Niger is that you have to be able to take the heat,” she said. “The recruiter told me that I should just keep running.”

Dad set the standard

Waldron is emotional as she explains the impetus for her decision.

“My dad (Lester Kocourek) was the first one to volunteer. He went to Burma and Egypt and he would advise people on farming,” she recalled. “He was the total inspiration and the best role model any girl could have.”

Waldron’s older sister Mary was a Peace Corps volunteer in Zaire in the late 1970s.

Education and traveling were important facets of their family life, Waldron said.

“We had so little money, but he took us on a family vacation every Thanksgiving when the crops were in,” she said.

And it wasn’t the deluxe vacation package.

“Sometimes we had to park on a hill so that we could get the car started in morning. And our meals might be soda crackers and Braunschweiger and Kool-Aid. But it was the most fun,” she said.

“And the coolest thing of all was that in the living room there was this huge world map and dad would take thumbtacks and string to mark the place where we started and where we went.”

And so it was that when Waldron began to think about the Peace Corps, she cautiously raised the subject with Nick, 21, and Sarah, 20.

“I wouldn’t have thought about going without their blessing,” she said. “In fact a year ago I was thinking about this, but I don’t think they were ready at the time.”

Family support

But she believes that a year has made a world of difference. Both children are supporting her in her mission to Africa.

“I think that it’s a really good thing for her,” said Nick, who will be attending Milwaukee Area Technical College in January. “A lot of people her age are worried about what they are going to do when they retire. She’s going to move to another country.”

Agreement comes from Sarah, who is a certified medical assistant at Bellin. “My mother’s a pretty special person. She really likes to help people.”

In another nod to mom’s adventure, Sarah has redecorated the home in an African motif — leopard and zebra prints.

Waldron admitted candidly that her biggest worry isn’t centered around traveling to a foreign place where she’ll share neither language, religion nor culture. Her biggest concern is the 27 months of separation from her children.

“I couldn’t go if I didn’t think that they were going to be supportive, if I didn’t have their blessing,” she said. “I’ll be the only white person in a village where I don’t even speak the language. And it’s neat. I was brought up and brought up my own kids to be open to all ethnic groups.

“I know that when we get together on Thursday at the farm we’ll be sharing some tears and laughter. Mostly laughter.”

If you know someone you’d like to see profiled, call Terry Anderson at (920) 431-8214.

Click on a link below for more stories on PCOL

Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Peace Corps - Recruitment; COS - Niger

PCOL148187

.

Add a Message

This is a public posting area. Enter your username and password if you have an account. Otherwise, enter your full name as your username and leave the password blank. Your e-mail address is optional.